Nobody knows anything. Not only about show business, but politics and finance. This is the story of this generation, how the media missed Trump and so much else. Hip-hop is gigantic, but Drake, the biggest act in the genre, and red-hot Migos, can’t sell every ticket and postpone opening dates for “production issues”… Like they didn’t know they were going to play those buildings to begin with? Then again, you certainly can’t trust entertainment reporting, where the scribes are sycophants looking for perks and will write anything their bullying patrons say. The Taylor Swift U.K. tour was a disaster, full of empty seats. But there was nary a word in the U.S. press, although the U.K. “Sun” printed pictures. But if you just push back hard enough, swing some swill about slow ticketing, then you get a pass.

But entertainment is irrelevant. Business and politics are not. The “New York Times” has been having a self-debate whether the Democrats are running too far to the left while the Republicans are saying that they are, laughing while they continue to define the debate, it’s the right that’s against Nancy Pelosi, and the Democratic powers-that-be will probably nominate another compromise candidate for President nobody wants. That’s not 2018. People want something to believe in, which is why Trump won, which is why pop music failed, if you’re thinking of appealing to everybody, you’re appealing to almost nobody. And niches are strong enough to support you. You may not get ink, but the EDM and jam band acts are doing quite fine, thank you.

As is Facebook.

Don’t think of it as the signature service solely, think of it as Instagram and WhatsApp too. The truth is there’s little disruption in tech these days, because any disrupting company is either purchased by the big kahunas or put out of business via competition by these same behemoths. That’s Amazon’s business model. The only high-flying company that does not depend upon acquisitions is Apple, quite possibly to its detriment.

So now we’ve got Facebook missing Wall Street’s numbers. BARELY! $13.2 billion in revenue instead of $13.4. 11% user growth instead of the previous quarter’s 13%. This is like complaining your Prius got 43 miles per gallon instead of 45, your mileage is still PHENOMENAL!

Now Facebook might be overpriced, but the point is this double digit drop is a reaction to everything but the fundamentals. Facebook is the whipping boy for the anti-Trump forces. That’s right, you’ve got to blame someone other than yourself. Not that Facebook is innocent, wow, Zuckerberg and Sandberg were ignorant as to the power of their platform and the ability of nefarious users to employ it. But social media survives. People have to connect somewhere. And Snapchat is fading and Facebook controls the big 3, Facebook itself, the burgeoning Instagram and the dominant outside the U.S. WhatsApp. WHAT’S THE PROBLEM?

Oh, there’s Twitter.

You read as much negative stuff about Twitter as you do about Facebook. People like Maggie Haberman lamenting the nastiness. Come on, when you decry online hate it just illustrates you’re a newbie. Nastiness has been extant since the turn of the century online, if you’ve been playing, every day people tell me I’m an asshole, if you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen. And the truth is Twitter is the epicenter of breaking news. It’s imperfect, but if you want a taste of America, a truth you might not be able to handle, even if it’s riddled with falsehoods, you need to log on. Just ask the NBA, which lives on Twitter. But the mainstream media comes last, and that includes Fox and the WSJ.

But at least the right wing has a self-serving agenda.

The left wing media, the NYT, is all about self-flagellation and a return to the past. That’s right, there was an article in the paper of record how to return to a flip-phone. What’s next, an article how to return to standard transmissions, even though automatics can now shift more quickly and get better gas mileage?

Oh, then there’s the canard that phones are distracting and we must turn them off, take vacations.

What hogwash.

People need to CONNECT!

We heard these same stories when teenagers were addicted to telephones.

I mean I’d love to live in today’s world as a teen. Where you come home and connect with all your buddies, where you are not isolated. Sure, there’s some increase in bullying, but every step forward comes at a cost. A/C in automobiles ended vent windows. We lived!

Wall Street is Las Vegas for experts and chumps.

And the truth is some experts are not that smart to begin with. The index fund beats the pickers. And hedge funds are doing poorly. If it all made sense, there’d be better predictions, but there are not!

So Facebook stock will go back up, just you watch. It’s not about the death of tech, but the power of tech. Where else are you gonna put your money, GE???

It was astounding.

If you want to know what it was like in ’68, if you want to steep yourself in the concert experience from way back when, go to this show.

First and foremost it was in a theatre. Hard to believe, but the acts lamented the move to arenas at first, because of the SOUND! It was muddy, still is. Sit in the back and if you don’t know the words by heart, you’re in trouble. And with fewer people it felt more intimate.

And everybody sat.

I don’t get the standing thing. I think it’s just a way for promoters to make more money. But once they got rid of the chairs, the whole encounter changed. It used to be a religious experience, sitting in your seat, letting your mind drift. Then it became about a hang, a social scene.

But tonight was a trip to church, or synagogue, and even if you’re not a believer, you would have bowed down to the music emanating from the stage.

On the surface, this is 1 + 1 + 1 = 4. That’s right, Roger McGuinn’s been singing the same old hits for eons, if you wanted to hear them live, you already have. And although Chris Hillman has experimented musically, he’s in even less demand. But if you add in wild card Marty Stuart and his Fabulous Superlatives, you end up with something you didn’t anticipate, the whole enterprise is lifted to another level. OF MUSIC!

We’ve gotten so far from the music it’s crazy. If you make hits, it’s about the trappings, your stardom, curating your social media feed is part of your act, what’s on stage is often canned, on hard drive, it’s just a celebration of the rest of your career. But the truth is recordings are dropping in influence. It’s what’s done on stage that counts. And when you get it right, like the assembled multitude did tonight, it’s TRANSCENDENT!

I didn’t expect it to be a Byrds concert, I didn’t expect it to be a celebration of what once was and still can be.

The show started with “My Back Pages.”

Wait, they weren’t immediately going to go into “Sweetheart Of The Rodeo” and play a few hits and exit thereafter?

And there were stories before each number, they gave context, not too long, but just right. And the second song was a cover of Porter Wagoner’s number “A Satisfied Mind,” sung by Marty. I never heard it, never knew it, but instantly I loved it!

Marty Stuart, the guy with the big hair who never crossed over to rock. His locks are white these days, but he’s younger than me. He’s lived in a parallel universe, and our paths have not crossed. But tonight!

The thing about these country players is they’re TIGHT! You get the idea they play every day, whether there’s an audience or not, they’re cohesive, and strong, the sound is AMAZING! It’s so weird to hear what once was and now still is again. There was nothing on hard drive, plastic surgery was not a factor, these were old guys who were still young.

Chris Hillman had to sit in a chair at times. McGuinn never doffed his hat. But when the band fired up it was just as vital as way back when. But curiously, there was no nostalgia factor, at least not until they paid tribute to Tom Petty at the end of the show.

You know, you go to hear the oldies, to trigger your memories. Hell, Journey is not the only band with a faux singer. It’s about the songs, they’re now ours. But these players owned the material, it was as fresh as today, you reveled in the sound, you expected them to come back next year with a new album.

But they won’t. Because no one wants to hear it, that’s not how it works anymore. Used to be you had to go to hear the new stuff, otherwise you might never hear it again. But now its just old nuggets, again and again.

But “Sweetheart Of The Rodeo” never gets play on stage.

But before that, in the first half, they toured their career, it was an Evening With.

And it wasn’t just hits. Sure, we heard “Mr. Tambourine Man,” amazing how McGuinn can still pick those notes, but there were obscurities, like “Time Between” and “Old John Robertson” and exquisite takes on “Wasn’t Born To Follow” and “Drug Store Truck Drivin’ Man.”

As for the second half…

That’s what people came to hear.

The bass player switched to pedal steel, Marty picked a mandolin when he wasn’t wailing on Clarence White’s guitar, and after a couple of Marty and band songs, it was…

“You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere.”

I didn’t buy “Sweetheart Of The Rodeo,” at least not in ’68, but in the fall of ’70, I went to visit my high school buddy Marc at the first year of Hampshire College and he picked it out on his guitar, I was immediately hooked. Funny how the hits fade and the album cuts persevere.

“Life In Prison” had meaning beyond the original.

“Blue Canadian Rockies” had visions of mountains hovering in front of your eyes.

“The Christian Life” made you a believer.

And “I Am A Pilgrim” united the audience, we’re all searching for song.

And then another take on “You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere,” with the audience singing along, half the melody, half the harmony, and…

Even if you were not a fan of “Sweetheart,” even if you didn’t know the material well, you got it tonight, that’s the power of music, that’s the power of sound, that’s the power of playing, that’s the power of BEING THERE!

After twenty three numbers I wasn’t sure there’d be an encore. And then they played “So You Want To Be A Rock ‘n’ Roll Star,” after McGuinn said most people think it’s a Petty song…

They went into Petty. McGuinn played his cover of “American Girl,” which just made me miss Tom.

But then Hillman performed his cover of “Wildflowers,” the same, but different from the original, and you almost weeped, for the loss, that’s when I got nostalgic, for what once was and forevermore will never be. Aren’t your elders supposed to die first? Not that they shouldn’t live, but in the natural order of things shouldn’t Tom be paying tribute to the departed Byrds?

But then…

It was a beautiful day, the sun beat down
I had the radio on, I was drivin’

Whoa! What? That’s right, Marty Stuart was singing RUNNIN’ DOWN A DREAM! I thought back to buying “Full Moon Fever,” that amazing run of songs on the first side, can those days ever come back? I’m not sure, as Tom is gone, but I’m still here and the band on stage was fully ALIVE!

The finale was “Turn! Turn! Turn!” and then they were gone.

To everything there is a season.

And we lived through it, the assembled multitude, no one under forty, most over sixty. When McGuinn wore his granny glasses on national TV, when we followed the personnel changes and stopped paying attention to sports, when there was a new exciting act on a regular basis, just like there was a new exciting app half a decade ago. We lived from one musical moment to the next, hopping along in ecstasy.

And then it ended. We loved that the young ‘uns embraced Zeppelin and the Doors, but then melody went out the window and it became about melisma whereas subtlety used to have a place. And the oldsters sit around and bitch, wishing the old days would come back…

TONIGHT THEY DID!

Going Down

Up all night with Freddie King
I got to tell you, poker’s his thing

Grand Funk Railroad was a joke. Hyped by radio advertising regarding their supposed success at the Atlanta Pop Festival they were the original heartland rock act, loved in the flyover states, when those still existed, abhorred on the coasts.

Until the third album, not even a year after the first, featured one of those derivative tracks, imitating the FM extended format, that somehow fit right in the pocket, proving you should always question your preconceptions, people will surprise you, the truth is over the years I’ve come to like “I’m Your Captain/Closer To Home” even more, I never switch stations on Sirius when it comes on, as for terrestrial, the track at 9:59 is just too long, then again, I haven’t listened to commercial radio in fifteen years, only the cheapest non-fans do, funny how we base the whole hit business upon the format.

But then Grand Funk went straight back into the dumper, only to emerge in the fall of ’73 with an album of gold vinyl produced by…Todd Rundgren? You’d think the wizard, the true star, would avoid this meat and potatoes act like the plague, then again, it’s hard to turn down a check, and the result was…

“We’re An American Band.”

Now back in ’73, all I had was an AM radio in my ’63 Chevy convertible, so I heard this on a regular basis, when I could get reception in the hinterlands of Vermont.

And this is a three and a half minute nugget, made for radio.

And featuring insider rock references that made you wonder…were Grand Funk HIP?

That’s right, Sweet Connie, the groupie from Little Rock.

But also, that reference to…

Freddie King.

Someone who never flew on our radar while we were listening to FM radio. The musicians, especially the English, may have been inspired by the bluesmen, but except for Bonnie Raitt, few featured them, we knew the names, but rarely, if ever, heard them.

But somehow we knew “Going Down.”

How did we?

It was a barroom staple, back when they had bands in bars, kinda like “Louie Louie” or “In The Midnight Hour,” everybody knew it. One figured it had a writer, somebody back in the fifties or even thirties, who probably was getting screwed on their royalties.

But research told me it was written by Don Nix.

Hmm… I used to see his name on Leon Russell and Shelter albums. Delaney & Bonnie. “Bangladesh.” Back when credits were our education and there was no internet to go any deeper.

And although Jeff Beck does a rollicking version of “Going Down,” the original was cut by a band called Moloch, on their 1969 album. I don’t think you’ve ever heard it, at least as evidenced by Spotify statistics, where the track has got all of 4,716 streams, and there are not many more on YouTube.

I was stunned the song was so new.

But not as much as I was stunned by Freddie King’s 1971 version, produced by Don Nix and Leon Russell.

Yes, the Master of Space & Time begins the number with a rollicking piano, as if he’s in a bar in Tulsa and no one from the coast is aware of what is happening.

And then come Freddie’s accents, his wailing, his reputation, not overplaying, not showing off, just getting right.

I’m going down
I’m going down, down, down, down, down

And he’s not oversinging either, just straight from the heart, straight from the juke joint, just for those in the room, not those at home. But then…

Yes, I’m going down, yes
I’m going down, down, down, down, down

Now he’s warming up.

Yes, I’ve got my big feet in the window
Got my head on the ground

Now his throat is involved, all his passion, this is his story, and he doesn’t care what you think of it, he’s just got to tell it.

And the solo is so soulful, you feel as if you’re playing, stepping from one foot to another as you’re whipping off the notes.

He’s going back to Chattanooga, a city those north of the Mason-Dixon Line can’t even spell, never mind been there. Via boxcar, to sleep on sister Irene’s door.

This is the blues.

This is rock.

This is the foundation.

And you’d better not listen unless you want to be infected, want to go down the rabbit hole, find out you’ve missed something and need to know more.

Now I know why Freddie King is in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

What does it take to make it?

This podcast is a spoken word counterpart to the legendary AC/DC track “It’s a Long Way to the Top (If You Wanna Rock ‘n’ Roll).”

That’s right, it’s harder than it looks, if your dad sells shoes, if you can’t afford the Les Paul you covet, if your link to the industry is the father of the Cowsills, a boorish drunk who’s now your manager.

His buddy Leslie West makes it, gets a record deal, after Waddy taught him licks, but Waddy’s struggling at the Blue Tooth in Warren, Vermont.

After Herbie Cohen tells him how to get out of the draft, successfully.

And while recording with Keith Olsen he’s told he’s the only real musician in the band, the only one who’s going to make it, so he fires the rest of the cats and becomes a sideman.

And that’s where you know him from, the long-haired curly guy who wails backing up the likes of Linda Ronstadt, Stevie Nicks and Warren Zevon. That’s one of the best stories, how Waddy helps write “Werewolves Of London,” after eating at Lee Ho Fook.

You see these people on stage and you’ve got no idea who they really are, only an image. And then you meet them and they have stories!!!

I couldn’t shut Waddy down, I couldn’t have him jump ahead to save time, as a matter of fact this is the longest podcast I’ve ever done, but it could have gone LONGER!

I think you’ll love it.

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